


nightmares

by terrible_titles



Series: The After Life [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bisexual Character, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Suicidal Thoughts, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 18:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4972024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrible_titles/pseuds/terrible_titles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to hide from the people you share dreams with.</p><p>*This fic can be read either as a standalone one-shot or part of The After Life series.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	nightmares

_It’s all destruction, all violence, all blood, all sacrifice. The vision passes by so quickly—flashes of reds and yellows and black. Her friends—Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn—all that she once knew blinks in front of her and snaps just as quickly away. She cannot even remember their faces._

_Then, all she can think about for several unending seconds is pain. It blossoms deep in her chest, spreads throughout her body, erupts, and suddenly she is sitting at a plain card table, the chair in front of her empty._

_And then there is Faith, somewhere at her side though Buffy refuses to turn. Everything is very still, not even the humming of the fridge or the ticking of the clock to interrupt. There is no breeze, no breath, no air. It is just them and an empty table and nothing._

_“Do you miss them?” Faith asks, still not in view._

_Without opening her mouth, Buffy hears herself say, “I miss what I could have been. To them.”_

_When Faith does not respond, Buffy turns. She half-expects Faith to snap away like the rest of them, but then she remembers—Faith is always there. She never goes away. She is just as real and solid in these dreams as Buffy._

_“There is always tomorrow,” Faith reassures her._

_Buffy nods. “Yes. They are coming.”_

*

Buffy woke, sweating and blinking up at the disorienting ceiling. She turned to her side and found empty space next to her. This was not unusual—it had, in fact, been more than five years she had not slept alone.

But she was not supposed to be sleeping alone tonight.

She climbed out from under the blanket, threw on some jeans, and padded her way down the hall. In the living room, she found Faith curled up and twisted in a blanket on the couch. Again, this was not unusual—but she should not have been there tonight.

God, she knew better than to let herself get caught up in Faith’s sex life. She was no better than Xander.

Buffy felt a great swell of anger in her chest. She wasn’t going back to sleep tonight, she realized. She grabbed a bottle of vodka and a jacket and slipped outside, halting on the bottom step which looked out over the garden. Dulled purples and blacks budded on the stems of flowers in the half moon; the shallow pond glistened, and it all seemed so simple.

She unscrewed the lid to the vodka, pressed it against her lips, and tilted her head back for a swallow. The burn was comforting and familiar, and it sated her for a few minutes.

She was too restless to sit for long, though.

Buffy had never been one for sleeping the entire night through. Back when she was slaying, it was an impossibility. She had always supposed slaying powers came with the ability to get by on four hours of sleep a night. The occasional nightcap helped her get back to sleep occasionally, but it was far more likely these days she would simply wander around aimlessly until the sun came up.

She took another swig from the bottle and screwed it closed, tucking it in close to her side. This town was sleepy and small, but still better not to test the open carry laws. She skipped the main road through town when she got there; it would pass by the school, and she didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, she chose to keep going on the residential road until it branched off onto a dirt one passing by some small farms.

The fields seemed peaceful and out of the way enough that Buffy took the cap back off the vodka and started trying for a bit of a buzz.

She had made a huge mistake with Faith. She wasn’t really sure why she made the first move; every time Faith waltzed back into her life, it might as well have been with a huge neon warning sign hanging around her neck. Why Faith felt the need to track her down was her own business, but she could kick herself for allowing her to stay and complicating things between them further.

Faith told her once they could never get along because they weren’t meant to exist at the same time. Buffy had felt inclined to believe her then, but now there were thousands of slayers who were never meant to co-exist, where did that leave the two of them?

Nowhere. Exactly nowhere. She couldn’t start digging back in the past, clinging onto it like a desperate thing. That part of her was gone now.

The vodka bottle felt dangerously light when she felt something was wrong. She couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but she turned, a bit disoriented, and searched the dark blue and green stretches of lands on either side. How far had she walked? It might have been running from Faith, her dream, or both, but she couldn’t figure out how she had managed to walk so far in such a short amount of time.

When a dark, boxy building took shape in her blurry vision, then, she decided to keep walking until she saw the bright candlelight from an open window on the side of a two-story barn.

Well, that seemed like a bad idea.

So did walking up to the barn to figure out what was going on in there, but it’s what Buffy found herself doing nevertheless.

Crouching beside the open doors, Buffy could smell several types of herbs which reminded her intensely of Willow so much she had to grab at her chest.

Deep breaths. No, she needed to focus. Herbs and Willows—there were witches at work here. At least her instincts were there to lead her when she was too buzzed to follow her own line of thought.

In the light of several candles, Buffy could just make out two people at work, a man and a woman, both short and slight, brown hair and fierce eyes on a metal circle between them. A wooden bowl was sat carefully to the side with what looked like a purple thread draped on top.

The small metal circle—the circle, the bracelet, the sun amulet. If she focused her thoughts very hard, she could remember the details of another small metal circle just like it on the palm of her hand, one Faith had given her right before the hoard of mostly immortal vamps attacked them. It seemed like just yesterday when Faith had shown up with an amulet, followed shortly by the vamps, helping Buffy to lose her job and break her celibate streak all in one night. But there were more important things at hand.

_They had a supplier._

Well, crap. That was inconvenient. It was bad enough with the Gem of Amara, but if some witch had found the recipe for concocting immortal jewelry for vampires, they’d need more than just two slayers in town. Buffy gritted her teeth and leaned her head against her hands.

“Lionel,” the woman said, head lifting. “I think we have a visitor.”

This was definitely not Buffy’s night.

They were witches, didn’t seem to be any vampires around, but Buffy had brought along no weapons. What made her think this was a good idea? She looked down at the mostly-empty bottle of vodka. Oh, yeah.

Lionel was headed her way. She waited behind the door until he stepped out, then thrust the bottle into his stomach. It shattered, causing him to double over. She flipped over him and took off after the woman.

“You’re kidding me, a slayer?” The woman’s voice was an impatient near-whine. “Lionel!”

“Run, Nan!” Lionel grunted, but before Buffy could run-stumble to the witch, Lionel had recovered enough to catch up, grab her, and throw her against the table.

“Careful!” Nan yelled, and Buffy could just see her grab the bowl with the thread off of the table, holding it close to her chest. Buffy flipped back to her feet. “I’ll meet you,” Nan told Lionel, and she was gone.

Lionel advanced on Buffy again before she could get over the disorientation of being upright quicker than her head wanted, which allowed him to grab her by the back of the head and slam her headfirst into the table ledge.

Every bad choice she had made this night swelled to a cacophony in her head alongside images of all the meals she had accidentally let explode in the microwave. She squeezed her eyes shut, shot her hand out, and grabbed the bracelet off the table.

“Your friend left some jewelry behind,” she muttered against the pain.

Lionel reached for her head again, but this time Buffy frantically ducked out of the way and sent him to the floor with a solid kick to the back of his knee. She dived down, planting all her weight on his torso, and punched him hard against the jaw.

“What is this?” she asked.

Lionel tried to bring his hand up, but she slammed it back down easily. Slayer strength against humans, always an unfair advantage… well, once she got the advantage. She punched him again.

“What is it?”

Lionel spit blood. “Why would I tell you? What’re gonna do, slayer, kill me?”

Buffy gritted her teeth, punched him again. “I’m a bit tipsy, and you seem to be in the business of making a lot of vamps very happy. It’s possible. So let’s try this again: _why_ are you doing this?”

“Hey, I got bills to pay,” he said, and then began laughing. The obnoxious sound ground in her head, making the bright lights from the candles and taste of blood in her mouth all the more potent. She couldn’t take it anymore, so reared back to strike him unconscious.

*

When she finally managed to find her way back home, Faith seemed a bit ticked. She immediately set down her bowl of cereal, though, when she saw what must have been Buffy’s terrifying outward state.

“Were you in a fight?” Faith said, incredulous, and she didn’t know whether the note in Faith’s voice was irritation, amusement, or pride. “Have you been drinking?”

Buffy paused. “Yes to both.” She closed the door behind her. “But it’s not what you think. Look at this.” She dug into her jean pocket and showed Faith the bracelet. “It’s just half-formed. They didn’t get the chance to finish it.”

Faith took Buffy’s hand and turned it over to show the bloodied, ripped-up knuckles. “You don’t go out armed anymore?”

It seemed a moot point, so Buffy just shrugged away from Faith’s touch. “The point being, someone’s out there with the ability to make these trinkets.”

Faith looked like she wanted to say something more on the subject of Buffy’s many recent mistakes. Finally, however, she just nodded. “No good, right?”

“No good.”

“Well, you know who might know a thing or two about magic jewelry?”

“Faith,” Buffy warned.

Faith shrugged. “What? I’m being honest here; this is starting to look like a job bigger than the two of us.”

In some distant part of her brain, Buffy knew she was right. But she felt exhaustion in the very marrow of her bones, and she was simply not going to be able to deal with the conversation just now.

Faith must have realized it, too, because all she did was cross her arms. “Great, you’re just crawling back home, all drunk and beat up, to dump this on me and bail? Fuck that, B, I’m not some mother hen. Just go to bed. We’ll talk later.”

 _Not some mother hen._ Is that what staying with your lover until morning was to Faith? God.

Buffy passed Faith with a wide berth and stood in the doorway of the bedroom for a long moment before simply deciding not to bother with her clothes. Instead, she simply collapsed in the midst of blankets and sheets and allowed the throbbing of her head to lull her to sleep.

*

_Outside, the moon is clear and vicious; it tears through the air like an eternal thing and finds her heart. Buffy is pinned. She looks down at her chest to gauge the damage, but only finds a tall, scraggy tree limb piercing her from the other side._

_She looks back at the moon, and its face is gentle._

_“Buffy.” The voice calls her from beyond—Faith, all those rough edges, solidity. “Buffy.”_

_“What is this place?” Buffy asks, because she is suddenly not outside any longer, but rather in a white narrow room. The limb still pins her at an awkward angle; the brown of it and the blood trail down her shirt the only color in the room._

_“Buffy.” Faith comes around her side, out in front, down the other side again. She is circling, ever in orbit._

_“Where did the moon go?” Buffy whispers beyond the ache in her chest._

_Faith pauses, somewhere close to her right side. After a long silence, she continues round until she stands right in front of her, very close to the wicked branch. Her expression is a conflicting one—torn between a careful energy of hope and overwhelming sympathy._

_“How do I get free?” Buffy whispers._

_Faith tilts her head back, towards where a vicious but gentle moon should be. “You must undo yourself.”_

*

Buffy shot up, gasping for breath, though she didn’t know why at first. Nothing had startled her, had it? Nothing external, nothing in her dream? But dreams were odd creatures—she must have seen more, and let it escape from memory.

Faith appeared in her doorway, the fading evening sun casting reds and oranges upon her figure. “Hey,” she said, bringing a spoonful of cereal to her mouth. “Thought you’d never wake up again.”

The sound of the television playing some awful sitcom blared in the background. After Buffy caught her breath again, she said, “Surely you couldn’t hear me wake up over _that_.”

Faith shrugged. “Well, you do this little scream-whine thing sometimes when you have nightmares.”

Buffy moved her legs to the side of the bed, trying desperately to gain some composure in the tilting world around her. “I do _not_ scream-whine,” she managed with a note of indignity. Then, “Turn around. I need to get out of these clothes.”

Faith choked on a laugh. “Are you serious? I’ve seen it all, in case you don’t remember, fully X-rated Buffy nudity, slayer on slayer action—”

“Faith! Just turn around!”

She rolled her eyes but complied. Buffy walked over to the open closet doors.

“So what was it this time?” Faith asked. She munched on her cereal and waited, but Buffy didn’t reply. “Hey, no fair sleeping during the day when I can’t listen in. You know the deal; it could be a thing.”

As Buffy was peeling off her mud and blood-stained jeans, she saw where her knuckles had been bandaged. She had only not noticed them before because they hadn’t hurt, though they should have. She reached up and touched her forehead where the long cut, the one she sported after being thrown into a table, should be. Instead of the rigid thin bumpiness of a healing wound, she touched puffy tape.

Faith had turned around while she was preoccupied. Buffy moved her gaze to stare at her, aware she was blushing awkwardly.

“You, uh, you bandaged me up while I was sleeping?” she asked dumbly, because really, who else had done it, the little magic elves who lived in her shoes?

To her surprise, Faith’s cheeks reddened as well. She fumbled a bit before shooting off peevishly, “Damn, B, you were gonna get blood all over your pillows.”

They stared at each other for a long minute, and it wasn’t until Faith spilled the spoonful of cereal down the edge of the bowl that Buffy realized she had not yet put on any pants. She dived back into the closet and found a clean pair of khakis. “You’re not supposed to be looking!” she yelled.

But there was a warm hand suddenly on her hipbone. She turned to find Faith had finally put down the cereal and stepped closer to Buffy, tracing a finger over her skin, studying it intently with wide brown eyes. Her chestnut hair tinged with fiery colors from the sunset. She looked up to found Buffy watching her and her full berry-colored lips snaked into that smug, sultry grin.

“You have to stop,” Buffy said, a bit more breathily than she would have liked.

Faith leaned in closer, now placing her palm fully over her hip, her other hand coming quickly up towards Buffy’s chest. “Or—?”

Buffy closed her eyes and swallowed, then pushed away. “Or nothing,” she said more clearly. “I mean it. No more.”

Faith backed off, did that stupid hands-up thing she always mimed whenever Buffy snapped at her. “Wow, sorry, I misread something here—”

Buffy turned back to the closet and slid her khakis on. “You already got your one night stand, or whatever. They’re called that for a reason.”

“Wait, what do you me—oh, no fair,” she groaned, probably because Buffy had peeled her T-shirt off over her head.

“I’m not your booty call.” She turned to Faith again, who had opened her mouth as if she was preparing to say something only to close it back. Somehow, her lack of protestation created a deeper pit in Buffy’s stomach than she had been prepared for. She yanked a random clean shirt off a hanger angrily. “We banged, and it’s over. Anything more’s a—”

“Mess,” Faith finished, a bit placidly. Then her tone turned bitter. “And you hate messes.”

Buffy stared incredulously. “ _Me?_ You’re the one who skipped out on me last night!”

Now, the color in Faith’s cheeks was less of a pleasant pink and more of an angry crimson. “Well, excuse me for being polite,” she muttered.

“In what universe is that considered _polite_?”

“Whatever!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up and turning on her heel. “I give up. You stay up on your high horse if that makes you feel worthy of your righteous anger. Whatever you want to think, I don’t care.” She disappeared down the hallway.

“Well, I may be on my high horse of righteous fury, but you sure know how to play the vic—” A door slammed, cutting Buffy off, left standing in an empty apartment clutching a shirt far too tightly in her bandaged hand.

*

Buffy was drinking coffee and eating a bagel in hopes of curbing the hangover headache when Faith returned. It was mildly surprising since Buffy figured it was a toss-up whether she’d come back or not. She had left some of the stuff that wasn’t in the bag she took everywhere, but she had so little that Buffy assumed all that remained was expendable. Kind of like everything else in Faith’s life.

“God, B, your taste in movies is horrible,” she said disgustedly as she slumped down beside Buffy on the couch.

Buffy wasn’t even sure what she was watching—it was just some mindless action-y movie she had flipped through and found on. Nonetheless, she found she was irritated by the judgment. “It’s nearly one; what have you been doing?”

Faith grabbed the bagel from Buffy’s hand and took a bite. “This is stale,” she said, handing it back. One boot planted itself on the coffee table; the other leg swung over the arm of the couch.

“Correction,” Buffy said. “What _are_ you doing?”

Faith turned, a reflective expression on her face. Then she grinned. “It’s simple, like I said.” She slung her left arm on the couch behind Buffy’s back. “Whatever you want to think, I don’t care. Won’t make me go anywhere. You don’t have popcorn, do you?”

*

_Their sleep schedules are all messed up now. Faith passes out soon after she gets home and realizes there is no popcorn, head falling over the back of the couch, still completely splayed across everything. Buffy finds herself waking up blearily in the cold light of morning with her head tucked under Faith’s shoulder, the television blinking images of some kid’s show reject._

_“Faith,” she whispers, lifting up on one arm._

_“Uhnnn,” Faith grunts back._

_Buffy decides not to wake her. She delicately disentangles herself from the sleeping mass of Faith-limbs and pads her way into the kitchen. God, she is starved, utterly starved._

_She stops in front of the fridge, but it isn’t a fridge. It is simply a card table. Upon it lies the knife block._

_Buffy fingers the handle of the chef knife, brings it out a little ways, and frowns through sudden inexplicable tears._

What are you doing here?

_She grabs the knife and hugs it against her chest, slides down to the floor. The metal is cool against the thin material of her shirt.  
_

Do they still look for you? Did they ever?

_Her hands trembles. The tempotation is fleeting at first, then potent.  
_

You let it go on too long. Days became weeks became months became years.

_“No,” she whispers, her head full of clouds, vague images of faces she can’t make out. Are they vicious or kind?_

Your best friends, your sister, your watcher. Gone. What have you now?

_Nothing._

What are you now?

_Nothing. Her breath is coming in small, gasping pants, and she can't seem to make her way out of the confusion, not until another voice breaks through._

_“Buffy.”_

_And like that, it is as if the clouds in her mind, in her vision, dissipate, and standing in front of her is Faith, all jeans and boots that should still be planted on a coffee table. Buffy drops the knife to her lap, looks around her._

_“Damn, this is another nightmare, isn’t it?”_

_“You’ve been the star of our dreamscapes for too long.” Faith tries to sound careless, but her face betrays anxiety as she bends to retrieve Buffy’s hand and help her up. “There’s something out there, and it’s hell-bent on you.”_

_Yes, and it seems to currently be breathing on her shoulder._

_Faith turns, her eyes wide. “Buff—”_

_Buffy turns as well and slams the knife hard into a chest before she even registers the colossal blue-black demon behind her. The knife serves to do nothing other than enrage it._

_Buffy takes a step backwards, tosses a fleeting glance to Faith. “Uh, how do we, uh, kill it?”_

_Faith flicks her eyes to her. “I don’t know!”_

_It is tall, looming, with what seems to be no real face and a pouched belly, now complete with knife. It keeps advancing, one long trunk at a time, as they keep backing up. Looking too long at it makes Buffy despair._

_“C’mon, B, think of something!”_

_Its face is there, actually, a swirl of disquieting purpled darkness. She can feel it, nearly. It is so silent, but it speaks inside her, whispers of something past—but also something more tangible, something concrete, something black and cold and peaceful. She wants to smile at it, like a newborn at their mother, but she no longer feels her own face, feels anything at all, really…_

_“Buffy? Buffy? Answer me, here—oh, shit, never mind.”_

_A whirl of brown and black crosses Buffy’s vision and implants itself directly into the demon’s side. The demon roars, the first sound it has actually made, and turns to grapple with Faith. Buffy supposes Faith means to tackle it to the ground, but the demon is made of less solid stuff than either of them realizes._

_Buffy blinks, clears her head, and then dives in the midst of it anyway, arm rearing back to connect on what should be a skull—_

*

She was tired of waking up like this, all sweat and tears stinging at her eyes, lungs not expanding hard enough or fast enough for the air she needed. But this time was different. This time, a hand clasped hers.

Buffy turned to find Faith, her eyes wide and bright in the otherwise early morning darkness. “Hey,” she said between gulping breaths. In the light of the moon, Buffy saw her lips curve into a small smile. “That was one hell of a dream.”

“Must have been the witch’s conjuring,” Buffy mumbled. “They were probably pretty peeved I raided their den.”

Faith made a noise of assent.  

“Do you know if we…?”

“We escaped, at least. I think when you snapped out of it, it lost its power to keep us in the dream. But if it’s still there next time…”

The unspoken promise lay between them, linked in their entwined fingers: Faith would continue to ineffectually tackle any and all dream demons which invaded Buffy’s consciousness at night.

Lights swam in her vision as pieces and fragments of the dream came back to her, fleeting, resisting wholeness or tangibility in her grasp. She felt vaguely unsettled, rolled over to click on the lamp beside her bed in hopes it would chase the whole mess away. Then turned back and stared at Faith, confused.

“How did we end up here?” she asked.

Faith’s color went pink. “Uh, you fell asleep on the couch.”

“So… you carried me to bed,” Buffy said. “And then you…?”

“Fell asleep as well,” Faith offered quickly, scrambling upright. “I mean, shit, B, you got all funny about me leaving you in the middle of the night and so I didn’t know if…” She looked down, her face an uncharacteristic mixture of desperation and worry. “I always want you,” she said softly. “Do you know that? It’s not just—it’s not just sex. It’s you. But I didn’t know if you would be thrilled to find me in here after it was all over.”

And Buffy kind of got it then—well, as much as she ever would, she supposed. To Faith, sex was a casual thing, easy to offer, easy to accept, easy to turn down, easy when refused. But sleeping with someone was an unfamiliar kind of intimacy, and Faith was skittish about offering intimacy, not sure where she was on the scale of whether she could ask, not sure how to assume when she was wanted.

So she eased her head down into Faith’s lap, wrapped Faith’s arm around her. “I would like to wake up here, with you, in a calm and normal way.” She paused. “Without having just fought off a dream demon.”

Buffy felt Faith’s body relax then, all the tension seeping out. She lifted her other hand and started stroking it through Buffy’s hair. It must have been gross and dingy from lack of showering after three nightmares and one barn fight, but Faith didn’t appear to mind, and for some reason that made Buffy’s chest feel tight with tears. She swallowed them back down.

“Hey, B,” Faith began gently.

“Yeah?” Buffy whispered back, her voice rough to her ears.

“Do you miss them?” When Buffy didn’t reply immediately, Faith continued. “I mean, you know I see them in your dreams. I know you must feel—” She hesitated on the word, then simply said, “Well, I know you must.”

After a long time, with a burning throat, Buffy answered, “Yes.”

Faith cleared her throat. “Yes, well.” She brushed a strand of knotted hair out, then tucked it behind Buffy’s ear. “We’re going to have to call someone soon.”

“I know. I know they have to come. Just.” Buffy took the arm looped around her chest and squeezed it tighter there. “Not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second of some mostly self-contained, but loosely-connected stories. The series ignores the end of Angel, as well as any post Buffy season 7 canon, so it's a bit of an AU. Thank you so much for reading! Comments are lovely. :)


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